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#41
08-08-2011
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As an ex model shop employee, shops need to shut atleast two days per week for family time. Its soooo exhausting at the shop, as the phone rings and every customer thinks they are the only customer (forget about the job your in the middle of!), then someone comes in the shop to ask "How fast does it go, can you sell me one for £100?" and then break times come-by and pass untaken. Heck sometimes your bursting for the loo and its impossible to get to it. And whilst you've been dealing with Mr.X you've had another email for Mr.Z asking why you didn't reply within 10minutes, the Mr.X calls back because his wife saw his credit card bill and cancels his order anyway.
Working in a shop is a sure-fire way to quickly drown any enthusiasm for RC racing. Weekends come and its family time, time to unwind, time to escape the chaos. There isn't enough Margin to have more employee's which are needed, as the LHS's are competing best they can with you guys buying from China!!! 
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#42
08-08-2011
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"Mark up" or profit in an item to someone outside of a retail environment can be very misleading. When banding percentages of 35% or 40% about it looks like the shops are on a to a good thing but obviously it all comes down to the item value. If you had for example 100% mark up on a £10 item it sounds good but you have to sell a bloody lot of them to pay staff wages!. Now in the Motorcycle trade you would expect us to have huge profits on brand new bikes that retail up to £15000......but we dont. we have a dealer mark up of just 10% accross the range. So in a £6000 bike we have £600 to play with IF we sell it at full money. By the time the customer wants a "deal" we are down to £300 profit, then we have to pay registration fee and road tax, thats down to £180 profit, then put it through the workshop for PDI. So thats virtually bugger all left then!
Im not sure how you guys in the model trade get on with bigger "warehouse" style dealers but we have huge issues. They are able to buy in huge amounts of bikes from the manufacturers and store them away. By doing this they hit their dealer purchase targets and claim their manufacturer bonus (which they see as their takings for the year) for hitting those targets, now all they have to do is get rid of all the bikes! They knock them out at cost price or sometimes less than cost price, dont give a bugger about customer service and carry on. This give the impression to the public that there must still be money left in the bike to be had as they assume big shops wouldn't sell them with no margin! For our wee shop where we do try and look after our customers this has the effect of people coming in to us after seeing these low prices on the internet at the bigger shops and expecting us to beat those prices because they think we must make soooo much money out of them! It's strangling our trade and before long there will be no local dealers at all, we will all have to trudge half way round the world to get the bikes, and travel back there for servicing etc. The reason for my waffle is to try and explain perhaps the reasons why dealers are getting quiet and only lasting a few years. Because of our human nature we all try to get a bargain and will shop around the world rather than support our local dealers. Until we change our attitudes to buying, prices in the local shops will never come down.
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#43
08-08-2011
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I could have ordered online and had it in a week or so, for about 45% less. But instead I purchased straight away from my LHS a Speed Passion at £160. My reason being that they support me, give me advice and generally help me out. I have never soldered anything in my life and I dont own a soldering iron. I would like to be able to do it myself, but have never been shown and wouldnt want to risk a couple of hundred pounds worth of gear 'experimenting' and blowing something up. So I bought it at the retail price from my LHS, who then proceeded to solder it all up for me. That level of service is worth paying the extra buck for. Even when I do buy online, it is always from the big 3 or 4 names that are all over this forum. I never buy from ebay or from China etc. How are we ever going to survive as a country, and how are businesses going to survive in this country, if we dont support the local guys?
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Feedback : http://www.oople.com/forums/showthread.php?t=80473
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#44
08-08-2011
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You need to blame the manufacturers. They are the ones allowing this type of selling to go on. Remember they don't care about YOUR customers, only selling bikes in the largest quantities they can. The trend for target hitting has killed all the profit margin on new vehicles and removed any allowance for the dealer to do any favours. This is all why main dealer servicing is an absolute rip off.......................another story. Anyway good luck to anybody trying to run their own business. Although an unrelated industry I have my own business and am very thankful that I don't have to put up with the average model shop punter as you guys describe them. I have enough stress without wanting to end up the psych ward.
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#45
08-08-2011
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Hello, im not saying ALL big dealers are like this but i can name a big franchise that is! and i worked there! I can also say that it was a matter of simply shifting units at whatever costs. There was no intention of hurting smaller dealers and everyone worked their nuts off, but now working for a family run smaller dealer i can see the effects it had.
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#46
08-08-2011
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 this sort of service is invalueable, and you'll be getting help from somebody who'll have done it 1000's of times and will do it really well for you as being a LHS employee, is likely to have been in RC for a few years and have this sort of experience.I was just getting at how hard work it is at the store, breaks skipped due to massive workload and short staff due to minimal margins. By weekend brain is about to explode!  Its even harder work being an employee/racer as you get head pecked trackside, but even when your not getting mithered, it starts to feel like work rather than leisure.
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#47
08-08-2011
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#48
08-08-2011
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and you dude got more mithering than me trackside!
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#49
08-08-2011
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Always talked sense that Chris Long!
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#50
08-08-2011
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I understand the frustration of jordan in his 1st post and I can totally understand the modelshops not opening on a dead day. Je spares used to open on a Saturday for a short while then stopped it was just not economically viable. So if that's the case the shops would have to put up the prices across all of the products to pay the wage/wages of the worker/owner and none of us want that.
I think jordan had the money in his pocket burning a hole and wanted to spend it ASAP and come home with a car boot full of his new purchases.. I really can't blame him and he just posted to let off a bit of steam. No malace intended in my opinion just a bloke disappointed  I try not to mail order anything I much prefer the human interaction my lhs provides and the vast experience and knowledge they offer at no extra cost. Luckily for me I drive past Je spares everyday on my way to/from work Ross mods is 7 miles from my house bmm about 10 miles both open Saturday's But I also understand the need for the Internet shops for the convenience of people working strange shifts or not feesable to drive 20 miles each way to a shop that's a £15 round trip in my motor so for a bit of shock oil it ain't happening!!! The moral of the story is you can't blame jordan for his passion and also can't blame the shops who are equally as passionate. But it comes down to a work/ home life balance that anyone who works deserves Good on you Darren it's no good being a wage slave. all work and no play would make Darren a dull lad!!! Buds
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